


In turns therefrom sipped lovers' wine

by ThunderstormsandMemories



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Memories, Spoilers, imagery and sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-21
Updated: 2013-09-21
Packaged: 2017-12-27 06:30:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/975558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThunderstormsandMemories/pseuds/ThunderstormsandMemories
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Months have passed since the battle and Gwen remembers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In turns therefrom sipped lovers' wine

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the poem 'Under the Waterfall' by Thomas Hardy, which was also the source of the title.

There is a waterfall in the woods of Camelot, half a day’s ride from the castle, hidden from sight by the thick trunks of oak trees and densely packed bushes. The stream seems to get lost in the foliage and emerges lower on the other side. It is only by following a path now known only to a few that you can reach the falls, and the smooth, sun-warmed rock at their base where you might sit for a picnic.  
The queen finds her way there after the time of rebuilding is done and she is allowed to pick up the pieces of her own life. She sits, her arms wrapped around her knees as if by hugging herself tightly enough she can hold herself together, and she remembers.  
The sun is uncomfortably warm upon her back, but still she shivers, sensing the ghost of their last afternoon here. He had been so happy, so alive, the sunlight glowing in his hair like a crown, his laughter easy and unrestrained. She can almost hear it now, mingling with the chatter of the river.  
The spray brushes her cheeks and mingles with tears she doesn’t realize she’s shedding, and she will not wipe them away. The droplets bead in her hair like a net of pearls, as they had done that other afternoon, when he’d said that made her look like a goddess, and he’d taken her hand in his. She remembers, and maybe if she remembers the details well enough it will be as if she never let go. So she closes her eyes and thinks about how his warm calloused fingers fit around hers and the cool smoothness of his rings.  
The bushes are laden with berries, perfectly ripe, and she picks one and presses it to her lips. It smells of summer, of hope, of love, and it tastes exactly as she remembers, sharp and sweet. The juice had still been on his lips when he’d kissed her, slowly and gently. It had stained the lip of the goblet they’d brought, one of the gold ones, only supposed to be used for state dinners, the logic being that they were used so rarely no one would notice if one or two went missing for an afternoon. Arthur had forgotten to bring a second and spilled half of the wine while pouring it, and the lunches weren’t as good as when Merlin made them, but Arthur had tried and anyway what did they need two goblets for when they could drink as easily from the same one?  
She swallows down the lump that rises in her throat and crawls closer to the edge, looking deep into the pool, under the rippled surface of the water. She sees it, but only because she knows it’s there. It’s the one goblet they’d brought, knocked over in a moment of distraction, when they’d decided that the promise held in that one kiss needed to be realized immediately, and that any clothing at all was too much on such a day, with a leafy curtain shielding them from the world and the only things that mattered were each other and the sun kissing every inch of their skin.  
She laughs through her tears, now falling fast upon the stone, to think of Arthur’s face when they heard the splash, when he’d said, “Too bad we only brought the one,” his hands still moving on her back and through her hair.  
It comforts her to think that at least something from that day would survive, even after the details of it fade from her memory, that there would always be something to remind her that it was not all just a dream.


End file.
